San Francisco Giants pitcher Matt Cain threw the 22nd perfect game in major league baseball history last night, and afterward he said this about catcher Buster Posey: “I can’t thank Buster enough. I didn’t even question once what he was calling.”

Posey recognized early that Cain’s fastball was lively and relied heavily on that. He repeatedly asked for it up in the zone—the umpire was giving Cain that pitch, and nobody on the Houston Astros could touch it. Posey also made one of the toughest plays in baseball—on a third strike, the pitch bounced off of his chest protector and dropped in front of the plate. But he pounced on it, easily throwing out the runner to end the sixth inning.

That play was big to preserve Cain’s perfect game, but most of what Posey did was unseen, and that’s the way catchers like it. After the pitcher, the catcher plays the biggest role in a no-hitter. He is involved in every pitch, suggesting which type of pitch it will be and where it should go as well as the delicate massage of his battery mate’s ego. Through moves as big as deftly blocking the plate to as small as taking advantage of an ump’s expanded strike zone, a catcher is the canvas upon which the pitcher paints his masterpiece.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy praised Posey for the way he called the game. “I couldn’t be happier for Buster Posey,” Bochy told reporters. “You can go your whole career and not catch a no-hitter, much less a perfect game.”

Posey is just the 21st catcher to catch a perfect game. Ron Hassey caught two. When it comes to no-hitters, the guys wearing the tools of ignorance usually are smart. The average catcher of a no-hitter is working his 534th game, according to research by SportsData LLC, and catchers don't last that long if they don't understand the game. For perfect games, the number jumps to 624. (This includes Yogi Berra, who caught Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series but not the first four perfect games because precise numbers aren't available.) Posey was in his 216th game.

Carlton Fisk caught 2,226 games, not one of them a no-hitter. Among Jeff Torborg’s 559 games were a perfect game by Sandy Koufax (in Torborg’s career game No. 74) and no-hitters by Bill Singer (334) and Nolan Ryan (488).

All kinds of pitchers throw no-hitters, from lefties who rely on control to overpowering right-handers. There seems to be more of a pattern among catchers who work no-hitters, though it’s also true that catchers are a more homogenous group.

Dan Plesac, a former pitcher who was with the Brewers for Juan Nieves’ no-hitter in 1987 and the Phillies for Kevin Milwood’s in 2003, reviewed the names of catchers who have caught no-hitters since 1990. “It’s a list of guys that pitchers consider good callers of games, guys that handle a pitching staff very well. That’s what strikes me,” says Plesac, an analyst for MLB Network. “Most of these guys are known more for their game-calling and catching and throwing then being run producers.”

(Plesac reviewed this list before Cain’s perfect game and before the Mariner’s combined no-hitter Friday caught by Jesus Montero. Posey is considered a strong defensive catcher. Montero is not.)

Giants right fielder Gregor Blanco made the best defensive play of the night with a diving catch in the seventh inning—the first out after Posey’s block of the plate. It’s rare for a catcher to make the key defensive play of a perfect game, but that’s what happened April 21 in White Sox pitcher Phil Humber’s perfect game.

The last pitch of Humber’s gem was the worst one he threw all day. Catcher A.J. Pierzynski knew from the second the ball left Humber’s hand that it would be way outside. Considering the count was full, that was bad news. Pinch-hitter Brendan Ryan started to swing then tried to stop. The ball skipped past Pierzynski’s glove and into his shin guard.

As the ball bounced to Pierzynski’s right, several things happened in rapid succession. Pierzynski sprang from his crouch and started chasing the ball. Ryan headed to first, slowly, thinking he had been walked. Umpire Brian Runge called strike three.

The dropped third strike rule is one of the oldest in baseball—older even than called strikes and called balls. But it had never been applied in such a dynamic situation: For the first time in major league history, the last out of a perfect game hinged on a catcher’s retrieving strike three and throwing to first to beat the runner.

Pierzynski’s heart beat madly in his chest as he ran after the ball. It’s a hard enough play in a normal situation because the runner is often in the path of the ball, the catcher is in a hurry and the momentum he carries from chasing the ball makes throwing accurately difficult. Add in the stress of the situation and “your nerves are as high as they can be as far as being on red alert,” Pierzynski says.

As Pierzynski grabbed the ball and prepared to throw, Pierzynski saw that Ryan had not gone far down the first base line because he had stopped to argue with Runge. Pierzynski says he would have been able to throw Ryan out if he hadn’t stopped, but the fact that he did allowed Pierzynski to set and make a good throw. Which is not nearly as easy as it sounds. “I wish I had caught it clean,” Pierzynski says, “because now every time they show Phil, they have to show me missing it and chasing it instead of showing Phil’s reaction.”

For the record, a fan’s video from the crowd shows Humber waving toward first, his way of telling Pierzynski to throw there. As the ball sailed there, Humber dropped to his knees and briefly put his head and hands on the ground. Then he stood up and got mobbed by his teammates.

BE IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME (OR CROUCH DOWN, CATCH THE BALL, THROW IT BACK AND SHUT UP)

If the catcher is the canvas, the pitcher’s stuff is the paint. The easiest way to catch a no-hitter is to have a great pitcher. Cain certainly falls in that category. Randy Johnson is 6-foot-10, and on the mound he looked 8-10 and meaner than a nest full of wasps. Combine his height and his fierceness with his heavy fastball and darting slider, and it’s easy to understand why he threw a no-hitter and a perfect game. “Once he got going, it almost felt like you were cheating, like you had the cheat codes for a video game,” says Robby Hammock, who caught Johnson’s perfect game for the Diamondbacks against the Braves in 2004.

Hammock considers catching Johnson’s perfect game the highlight of his career. He retired after last season and is now a coach in the Diamondbacks system. He jokes that because he caught a perfect game, people think he’s a genius, which helped him get his coaching job. Ah, but he knows the truth. “It was the easiest game I ever caught. Nobody ever got on base. One, two three, one, two, three, every single inning, then I’m back in the dugout,” Hammock says.

Buck Rodgers was the catcher for the Angels when Bo Belinsky threw a no-hitter May 5, 1962. Combined, the two were the least experienced pitcher-catcher combination to complete a no-hitter. Rodgers was making just his 33rd start and Belinsky was a rookie pitching in his fourth game. But the two showed uncommon savvy in blanking the Orioles in a 2-0 win.

Belinsky’s best pitch was his screwball, but he couldn’t control that or his curveball on this day. His fastball was the only pitch that was working. “He had a lot of 2-0 and 3-1 counts, and he just had to challenge them, and they popped up,” Rodgers says.

On the bench, Belinsky, who died in 2001, didn’t mind talking with Rodgers about the no-hitter. Good thing, because the conversations about how to attack the hitters were important as the game progressed. A good fastball would work alone for only so long, no matter how good it was. “We would talk about, ‘We’ve got to get a breaking pitch over here pretty quick. We can’t keep going with the fastball,’” Rodgers says. “Finally, we got a few over enough that we got them looking for it a little bit. Then, when they started to look for it just a little bit, that’s when the fastball really assumed a greater importance because they couldn’t just sit on it.”

Twenty-nine years later, Rodgers would be fired as the Expos' manager early in the season, only months before Dennis Martinez threw a perfect game for Montreal. That game was nothing like Belinsky’s. Martinez used three pitches and pinpoint control; Belinsky mostly used one in his no-hitter and didn’t know where it was going. Belinsky hit two batters and walked four.

KNOW THE PITCHER, KNOW THE HITTER, KNOW THE UMPIRE (AND BE WILLING TO IGNORE ALL OF THAT)

The best catchers prepare for games more than even the pitchers. Catchers know the hitters, they know the pitcher, they know the umpire. But preparation is not everything. Eli Whiteside didn’t find out he was catching what became Jonathan Sanchez’s no-hitter for the Giants in 2009 until that afternoon. He played only because regular catcher Bengie Molina’s wife was in labor. Bill Schroeder caught Nieves’ no-hitter for the Brewers because B.J. Surhoff had dental work done.

Brent Mayne, who caught Bret Saberhagen’s no-hitter for the Royals in 1991 and was on the bench for Johnson’s perfect game, studied hitters and pitchers and paid close attention to hitters to pick up adjustments they made during the game. But he wasn’t a slave to that knowledge. “I wanted my intuition to trump everything I knew,” he says.

Saberhagen was so good during pre-game warm-ups that Mayne told the pitching coach that Saberhagen would throw a no-hitter. That’s the only time Mayne did that in his 15-year career. “He owned the inside of the plate. He was able to throw in off the plate effectively and throw strikes in there effectively. That opened up a lot of other things,” Mayne says.

Among those other things that opened up: the strike zone. Mayne noticed that umpire Ted Hendry was calling inside pitches strikes, so he exploited that, much like Posey exploited the high strike Wednesday night. “I remember pounding, pounding, pounding inside,” Mayne says.

WIN FIRST, NO-HITTER SECOND, PERFECT GAME LAST … USUALLY

Tigers catcher Alex Avila caught one of Justin Verlander’s two no-hitters. He was behind the plate in May when Verlander lost one with one out in the ninth and two years ago on the infamous night when Armando Galarraga lost a perfect game on a blown call with two outs in the ninth. He said as those games progressed, they felt like playoff games. Mayne said it was much more stressful to watch Johnson’s perfect game from the bench than to play in Saberhagen’s no-hitter because when he was playing he had some say in what happened. As the no-hitter jitters settle in, catchers try not to outthink themselves as they balance going for the no-hitter with trying to win the game.

Posey said he had never been more nervous on a baseball field, but he tried not to let that change his approach. “What I tried to do was just be confident in everything I called and not deviate from what I would have done in a tie game,” he told reporters last night.

Not all catchers work that way. Some change the way they call the game in pursuit of the no-hitter. On a cold and rainy night in Baltimore in 1987, Brewers pitcher Juan Nieves pitched the best game of his life. Hitters two through six in the Orioles lineup would combine for 42 career All-Star appearances, but none of them or their teammates could touch Nieves, who was making just his 35th career start. To complete his no-hitter, Nieves, with two outs in the ninth and a 7-0 lead, had to retire a future Hall of Famer: Cal Ripken. When Nieves fell behind in the count to Ripken, 2-0, catcher Bill Schroeder called for Nieves to walk Ripken.

Schroeder laughs now that he walked one future Hall of Famer to bring up another one—who also happened to be a switch-hitter. But slugger Eddie Murray flew out to center fielder Robin Yount.

It’s impossible to know whether Schroeder’s decision saved Nieves’ no-hitter or just made it last one hitter longer. If walking batters is one way to save a no-hitter, striking them out is another. Avila says that as the innings mount with Verlander on the mound and a no-hitter in the offing, they try to strike out batters instead of pitching to contact. Pierzynski says the no-hitter takes priority over the perfect game. He calls for swing-and-miss pitches on the fringe of the strike zone, risking a walk, instead of pitching to contact and risking a hit.

In a close game, seeking the no-hitter is a high risk, high reward gamble. The risk is losing the game. The reward is a no-hitter. Mike Heath caught a no-hitter by Mike Warren of the A’s in 1983. The A’s led the White Sox, 3-0, late in the game and won by that score. “Even though the game was close, I still felt, at 7 2/3, I’m thinking no-hitter and then the win. Sorry—I wanted my pitcher to get the no-hitter in the worst way,” he says. “Yes, we wanted to win. But still, I’m calling the game the way Mike showed me that he could throw the whole game. He was totally on.”

Just as it would for a pitcher, the last pitch of the no-hitter sticks with Heath. “I looked over at (A’s pitching coach) Ron Schueler. Ron Schueler looked at me and goes, ‘Whatever you want.’ Carlton Fisk was the batter. I called for a breaking ball, because that thing was still sharp, breaking out of the zone.”

Fisk flew out to left. Heath’s work was done—almost. He rushed to the mound to celebrate. He got there before the paint on Warren’s masterpiece was dry.